Ballots to remain uncounted in MI and Stein blocked in Philly. Guest: Election integrity, law expert Paul Lehto says this proves 'only option is to get it right on Election Night'. Also: Trump taps climate denier, fossil-fuel tool for EPA...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: House GOP attacks America's clean energy industry --- again; Solar becoming cheaper than coal --- finally; Coal industry panicking --- naturally; Americans willing to pay more for clean energy, as long as it's not nuclear; PLUS: Australians are hot --- the hottest they've been in a thousand years ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

The ad also mirrors Fox's recent attempt to blur the lines between potential technology that would capture and bury carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants (so-called "clean coal") and the same old coal that continues to emit more carbon dioxide than any other fuel, not to mention mercury and other toxic pollutants. The ad purports to show "Candidate Obama vs. President Obama on Clean Coal" but it really shows candidate Obama on "clean coal" vs. President Obama on dirty coal.

The U.S. coal industry is flailing. Utilities are stampeding from coal to natural gas and coal mining companies are seeing their stock prices plunge. The industry is responding the way it always has to threat: blaming government regulation and pouring money into influence peddling.

Power from solar panels is much closer to price competitiveness with fossil fuel-generated electricity than many policy-makers and investors realize, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Many decision-makers have yet to catch up with the improvements in the economics of solar power from recent reductions in the cost of the technology, a working paper released by the London-based research firm said today.

Americans Willing to Pay More For Clean energy --- But Not Nuclear, Nat Gas:

Yet another recent poll showed that Americans really support clean energy, across political affiliations (though, there’s clearly more support on the left).

The ORC International survey, conducted for the nonprofit and nonpartisan Civil Society Institute (CSI), found that 76% of Americans (58% of Republicans, 83% of Independents, and 88% of Democrats) want to see ”a reduction in our reliance on nuclear power, natural gas and coal, and instead, launch a national initiative to boost renewable energy and energy efficiency.” (And who knows what the remaining 24% are smoking?)
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Not only that, the public has clearly picked up on the fact that corrupt politics is a key reason we don’t have more of that.

The survey found that the public is willing to tolerate electricity bill increases of up to $199 per year for a CES that includes renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. But the public has less tolerance when natural gas and nuclear power are added into the mix.

It was a new attempt by the GOP to create the kind of furor that occurred when solar manufacturer Solyndra collapsed last year...
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Without the help of the loan, [Michael Ahearn, the chairman of First Solar] told the congressmen, “We wouldn’t be the biggest player in the U.S. utility market. We would be a much smaller player.”

John Woolard, chief executive officer of BrightSource Energy Inc., told lawmakers today that a $1.6 billion guarantee for a solar-generating facility in California will create 1,400 construction jobs at its peak. Without the backing, the company probably would have invested more overseas, he said.

In its report on next year’s Pentagon budget, the House Armed Services Committee banned the Defense Department from making or buying an alternative fuel that costs more than a “traditional fossil fuel.” It’s a standard that may be almost impossible to meet, energy experts believe; there’s almost no way the tiny, experimental biofuel industry can hope to compete on price with the massive, century-old fossil fuels business.
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But if the measure becomes law, it would make it all-but-inconceivable for the Pentagon to buy the renewable fuels. It would likely scuttle one of the top priorities of Navy Secretary Ray Mabus. And it might very well suffocate the gasping biofuel industry, which was looking to the Pentagon to help it survive.

On clean energy, the material/financial aspects of the conflict are the easiest to understand. Wind, solar, and the rest threaten the financial dominance and political influence of dirty energy.
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Witness:

"Opposing Obama's energy policies was a natural fit for conservatives, said Marita Noon, a conservative activist from New Mexico who was at the meeting. "The American way, what made CostCo and Walmart a success, is to use more and pay less. That's the American way."

"Our study revealed that recent warming in a 1,000-year context is highly unusual and cannot be explained by natural factors alone, suggesting a strong influence of human-caused climate change in the Australasian region," Joelle Gergis, the study's lead researcher, said.

The flagship project of a hoped-for but not-yet-realized “nuclear renaissance,” the Vogtle 3 and 4 reactors under construction near Augusta, Ga., may cost about $900 million more than had been estimated, the Southern Company said in a filing this week with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

When writer Florence Williams was nursing her second child, she read a research study about toxins found in human breast milk. She decided to test her own breast milk and shipped a sample to a lab in Germany. What came back surprised her. Trace amounts of pesticides, dioxin and a jet fuel ingredient — as well as high to average levels of flame retardants — were all found in her breast milk. How could something like this happen?

The number of extreme rainstorms - deluges that dump 3 inches or more in a day - doubled in the U.S. Midwest over the last half-century, causing billions of dollars in flood damage in a trend climate advocates link to a rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

Without fanfare, the nation's nuclear power regulators have overhauled community emergency planning for the first time in more than three decades, requiring fewer exercises for major accidents and recommending that fewer people be evacuated right away.

Under the terms of the Durban Platform agreed at last year's UN climate summit, the EU said it would sign on to an extension of the Kyoto protocol before it lapses at the end of this year in return for an agreement from all nations that a new binding treaty will be finalised by 2015 and enacted by 2020.
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However, negotiators are divided over how long the extended Kyoto protocol should operate, with developing countries insisting the treaty should continue to be enforced over five-year commitment periods, and the EU expressing its preference for an eight-year commitment period that would allow it to be replaced by the new international treaty in 2020.

Researchers have known for years that large amounts of methane are frozen in Arctic tundra soils and in marine sediments ... But now a multi-institutional study led by Eric Kort of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has uncovered a surprising and potentially important new source of methane: the Arctic Ocean itself.

According to new figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, coal made up 36 percent of U.S. electricity in the first quarter of 2012 — down from 44.6 percent in the first quarter of 2011.

Here is a pair of graphs that demonstrate most vividly the merit order effect and the impact that solar is having on electricity prices in Germany; and why utilities there and elsewhere are desperate to try to rein in the growth of solar PV in Europe. It may also explain why Australian generators are fighting so hard against the extension of feed-in tariffs in this country.
..Essentially, it means that solar PV is not just licking the cream off the profits of the fossil fuel generators — as happens in Australia with a more modest rollout of PV — it is in fact eating their entire cake.

Manufacturers of flame retardants would repeatedly point to this government study as key proof that these toxic chemicals — embedded in many common household items — prevented residential fires and saved lives. But the study's lead author, Vytenis Babrauskas, told the Tribune that industry officials have "grossly distorted" the findings of his research, which was not based on real-world conditions. The small amounts of flame retardants in typical home furnishings, he said, offer little to no fire protection.

"Industry has used this study in ways that are improper and untruthful," he said.

Top climate scientist James Hansen tells the story of his involvement in the science of and debate over global climate change. In doing so he outlines the overwhelming evidence that change is happening and why that makes him deeply worried about the future.

It's simple: If there is to be any hope of avoiding civilization-threatening climate disruption, the U.S. and other nations must act immediately and aggressively on an unprecedented scale. That means moving to emergency footing. War footing. "Hitler is on the march and our survival is at stake" footing. That simply won't be possible unless a critical mass of people are on board. It's not the kind of thing you can sneak in incrementally.

The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be "lost for ever", according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.
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"The door is closing," Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said. "I am very worried - if we don't change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever."

Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, says there's no question that the influence of his group and others like it has been instrumental in the rise of Republican candidates who question or deny climate science. "If you look at where the situation was three years ago and where it is today, there's been a dramatic turnaround. Most of these candidates have figured out that the science has become political," he said.
...Groups like Americans for Prosperity have done it."

At present uses of Solar in Bangladesh very little, But i feel its very impotent for our country, Here in Bangladesh Our government cant coverage electricity that is why Need to use solar. I know its cost a little much but only for one time. I already used in in my office.